1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for inserting advertisements into streaming digital media and, in particular, to methods and systems for inserting and playing back individualized advertisements from within the same radio stream.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional radio broadcasting facilities earn money by selling advertisements (ads) that are played back at specified times to an unknown and typically not well-tracked audience. These periods are often referred to as ad breaks. A broadcast operator typically presses a switch at a console for each ad break. Every audience member hears the same ad, with a smooth transition into and out of each ad.
The Internet, digital streaming technologies, and other related on-line technologies have changed the audience listening horizon in that it is now possible to listen to a radio broadcast over a network. This is referred to as a “live connection.” The content is “streamed” in real time to a client computer system for playback, such as using a media player software program. It is also possible to listen to a previously recorded broadcast as “on-demand” content. Such a computer system that serves digital content can now track many types of data to characterize an audience member, for example age and gender. Unlike for the traditional radio broadcast studio, the audience member is no longer anonymous.
Today, advertisements in a digital radio broadcast are essentially served as pre-programmed items in the broadcast stream. For example, a studio that wishes to play local ads typically replaces the existing ads (as with traditional sound mixing techniques) with the desired ads prior to the content being delivered to the client listeners. In a sense, these techniques for inserting ads into streamed radio broadcasts are similar to how software applications are “localized” for different languages.